Oracle Blog

The Test Drive: Chhandomay on Sun Product Reviews

Saturday Feb 09, 2008

1. Solaris
10 has been Shipping for Three Years -- John J. McLaughlin, 1/31
In this blog, John McLaughlin talks about the many different releases
of Solaris 10 during the past years, stating that saying the product
has been successful "would be an understatement." After going through
many of the features and benefits of Solaris 10, he encourages his
readers to set up a lab and experiment with the new tools and
technology.

3. What are we afraid of?
-- LWN.net, 1/31
In this entry, a blogger discusses Nexenta, a project that enables
customers to compile Ubuntu packages on Solaris by using userland tools
along with the "beautiful" new Solaris tools such as ZFS and dtrace. He
praises a tool called "apt-clone", which uses ZFS snapshots to make it
possible to rewind to that particular set of installed debian packages,
and asks his readers "isn't that awesome?"

4. New
Sun Ultra 24 Workstation -- ryandelaplante.com, 2/5
Ryan de Laplante writes about his recent purchase of an Ultra 24
workstation. He bought it to gain experience using Solaris in
preparation for one of his future endeavors. He notes that it came with
Solaris 10 pre-installed which is great for servers, but too dated for
desktop use. He also mentions that Solaris Express will be replaced by
the OpenSolaris in the spring, and that project "Indiana is to Solaris
what Fedora is to Red Hat." He points out a couple of keyboard related
issues he does not care for on the Ultra 24, but overall states: "I
really like this computer. I'm sure I'll get a good 6-7 years out of it
like my last computer."

Saturday Oct 27, 2007

1. Sun Launches Intel
Workstation on X38 Platform -- ZDNet, 10/24
In this blog, George Ou positively discusses the recent release of the
Ultra 24 and the different features that it comes along with. He
explains that the Ultra 24 comes with a Solaris license but also
supports a wide range of operating systems. He also explains that even
though he has not reviewed the workstation hands on yet, "the prices
look decent for a brand-name workstation and the hardware
specifications look good."

2. The Open
Office Experiment -- SoapBox 2.0, 10/22
This blogger writes about OpenOffice being alternative to Microsoft
Office. He explains that he has never been able to use this
office suite because he is primarily a Mac user and wants to work with
a word processor that will run seemingly across his OS. He now
has an opportunity through NeoOffice and is going to do all word
processing and spreadsheet work through this office suite and write
about his experience.

Thursday Oct 25, 2007

Two glowing
reviews of Sun Ultra 24
Workstation have appeared since I wrote
two
days ago about the availability of this new Intel-based workstation.

InfoWorld's Paul Venezia examined
the new workstation and ran a slew of
tests. Sun Ultra 24 came out with flying colors on each occasion.
According to Paul, "At first blush,
I figured the Ultra 24 to be just another small, workstation-class
system that would be good for those who need a little extra horsepower
from time to time, but aren't running high-end apps that need a
full-blown workstation. After putting it through its paces, I'm
thinking that it just might fit both bills. Don't let the size and
single-CPU nature of the Ultra 24 fool you -- there's a lot of power in
that little box."

eWEEK's Frank Ohlhorst also put the Ultra 24 workstation through it
paces, and he is extremely
positive as well with what he found.
According to Frank, "Sun undoubtedly has
a winner with the Ultra
24 series of workstations, and other vendors will be hard-pressed to
outperform it. What's more, the Ultra 24 proves that quality is
still a
valuable asset when it comes to workstations. The unit is built like a
tank, yet offers toolless access to components. The company has
successfully balanced quality with ease of service, while still
offering unquestionable performance."